After his studies, Michiel van Mens entered the military service and was trained as a journalist and photographer. He worked close together with a professional photographer and from him I learned the technique of photography. Both the shooting itself, but also the development of films and the printing of photos. That was still the world of analog photography. Every day Michiel van Mens went out to make stories of conscripted soldiers on exercise. For more then a year he traveled all over Europe and came back with stories and many roles of black and white films. And at the end of the month a magazine that he had made together with Wim Dijkema, my colleague and teacher.
Back in Amsterdam Michiel van Mens started several projects as a street-fotografer. A inspiration for him was Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990), a Dutch photographer who walked around Amsterdam as a street photographer between 1950-1970. By looking at his photos and reading about him, he understood that ‘everything on the street’ can be fascinating. Everyday life in Amsterdam is just as captivating as Jimmy Nelson’s indigenous tribes. In that period Michiel van Mens made some foto-documentairies in Polen, Oekraine and the Baltic State. But my main project became Amsterdam Oud-West. Fot almost two years he walked with my camera throug this neighborhood of Amsterdam, roughly covering the area between the Overtoom, a major thoroughfare west of the city centre, and the parallel De Clercqstraat, a shopping street. The project Oud-West came to a end with several exhibition. From that moment on he have not touched my analog cameras again. Until thirty years later, curious about the photos from 1993-1995, Michiel van Mens started scanning the original negatives and saw my photos again. He bought a digital camera (Sony Alfa 6400) and started again where he left off in 1995.